If Lovin' You is Wrong
by bsmog
Summary: With college graduation nearing, can Jasper finally tell his mysterious Glowstick Girl how he feels? Will Edward and Bella find a new rhythm as DJ Emmett spins love through the speakers? AH. Rated M for citrusy fluff and recreational drug use.
1. If Lovin' You is Wrong

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and all associated characters. This is her world, I'm just living in it. No copyright infringement intended. Song lyrics belong to Faithless. Schmendrick and **_**The Last **__**Unicorn**_** belong to Peter S. Beagle and Rankin/Bass Productions. Rated M for recreational drug use, language, and sexual situations. **

**The first chapter of this story was an entry in the "For the Love of Jasper" contest. It will be expanded to three chapters, one for each major pairing. **

**To see other entries in the "For the Love of Jasper" contest, please visit the C2:www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/community/For_the_Love_of_Jasper_Contest/72564/**

Music and lights flash around me, bass pumping and pulsing, bodies twirling and writhing to the beat. The smell of menthol and cigarette smoke hangs heavy in the air, and it's already hot inside the party. A new song pulses through the speakers and I laugh to myself, knowing the DJ's on a mission if he's pulling out this song.

_God is a DJ. _Nice. Emmett's all up in Faithless tonight. Must be trying to get some ass.

I scan the crowd, my body involuntarily pulsing with the bass. Finally I pick him out of a mob at the back of the house, spinning on an elevated platform between two huge speakers. I chuckle a little as I watch him up there. He's shirtless already, which doesn't surprise me. Between the tatts and the bars through his nipples, he'll do anything he can to strip, just to show off all the body mod. He's got a right though, I'll give him that. I think he's single-handedly putting his tattoo artist through college, and his piercer too. Fucker really is a hell of a DJ; problem is, he knows it. He's flanked on either side by two of the hottest women I've seen jump on the Emmett wagon yet, and that's saying something.

I chuckle as I watch my friend, then go back to searching the party. My eyes dart from one cluster of dancers to the next, taking in wardrobe choices, hairstyles, shoes. I know I sound like a tool, but what a chick wears to a house party like this one says a thing or two about what she's doing there. Some girls show up to these things primped and pre-gamed, thinking it's like any other frat party on campus. Get drunk, get naked, get laid. Those girls are the ones that show up in impossibly high heels paired with impossibly short skirts. Tits spill out the top of cami-whatever the fuck those strappy shirts are called, and they're all made up like Stripper Pole Barbie.

Don't get me wrong, I love women. I love them in all shapes and sizes and outfits. But this isn't one of those parties, and they'll figure that out soon and totter out, looking for some big, dumb jocks to fuck.

The girls worth checking out at parties like these are dressed down. They're dressed to dance, and I don't mean wag their asses around and mount each other on some cleared space. Wife-beaters or snarky t-shirts come paired with rave jeans most of the time. And the footwear of choice is sneakers or shit-kickers. Depends on the chick.

I let my eyes linger on the clusters of those girls a bit longer, but I'm looking for one girl in particular. As soon as I realize she's not in one group, I move on to the next.

"She's here somewhere, dude. Calm the fuck down, or that shit isn't ever gonna kick in."

My roommate and best friend Edward Cullen appears out of nowhere and shouts at me over the din. I can barely hear him, but I nod, tearing my gaze from the crowd to look at Edward. He's bouncing to the beat of the music, a big, goofy smile on his face.

I laugh. "I see you're good, huh?"

Edward claps me on the back in response, then wraps his arm around my neck and pulls me into his side, mussing my hair affectionately. Yep, his shit kicked in. Lucky bastard.

We were at what is affectionately known here on campus as a "dry rave." Which is bullshit on about nine levels, not the least of which is that it's really just a house party with black light and a DJ instead of regular lights and a stereo, but also because the idea was that no alcohol would be served.

That's more bullshit, by the way, because there's a makeshift bar upstairs in some dude's room, but that was to placate the aforementioned Stripper Barbie group that missed the point of the black lighting and the inclusion of house and trance music.

Properly medicated, that combination is heaven on earth. I've heard we could have bought our shit here, but popping Ecstasy before we left the house served a double purpose: first, James, Edward's dealer, could be trusted to get pure shit. None of that crap laced with heroin or meth. I want to know exactly what I'm taking and exactly what it'll do to me, so it's gotta come from someone we know. Second, E usually takes anywhere from a half an hour to an hour to kick in. The walk to the house Emmett told us about was about 20 minutes from ours, so the idea was to show up, get the lay of the land, and pretty much be good to go.

Obviously the plan is working great for Edward.

I extract myself from his grasp before he launches into noogies or something. Edward's a pretty affectionate guy anyway, so when he gets E in his system, he really loves everyone. Makes him popular with the ladies, but I live with the fucker, I already know he likes me.

Still, I can't help but feel a wave of fondness of my own toward my friend. I met Edward my first day of freshman year. He was my assigned roommate in the engineering dorm, and we'd hit it off instantly. He was double majoring in structural engineering and architecture (can we say overachiever?), while I was hell bent on an aerospace degree.

Here we are, four years later, almost ready to graduate. Edward has a promising future in commercial design, and I'm leaving straight after graduation for an unbelievable job in the think tank for a major defense company. I'm not telling which one, the last thing I need is for the suits to find out I come to parties like this; that would be bye-bye Jasper's security clearance, hello unemployment.

Emmett is a musician, he just DJs for cash on the side. He's off to some conservatory on the east coast after we graduate, but I'll always think of him spinning, and my guess is, he'll never quit. He's an engineer too, getting his B.S. in Acoustics. He lived across the hall in the dorms, and in the apartment next door now.

The three of us have been through all the college shit together, and this night is the last time any of us will probably go near recreational drugs or house parties, unless Em keeps up his DJ gig. One last foray into true escape before real life kicks us in the ass.

Suddenly I realize that the warmth and nostalgia I'm feeling toward my buddies is really the E kicking in, and I grin at Edward.

He holds out his hand then, proffering a small white square of paper. I consider for a moment, then shake my head.

"Nah, man, I'm good. I'm not flipping anymore after last time, and I just wanna enjoy the high tonight, anyway."

Edward shrugs and places the paper on his tongue, laughing as he does it, and I know this is because he's remembering my little incident.

Candy-flipping is the term for dropping Acid when you're on E. The last time I did it, I thought the tree outside grew tits and looked like that weird-ass cartoon tree in that freaky unicorn movie. What was that shit called? Oh yeah. _The Last Unicorn. _Anyway, in the movie, there's this magician, Schmendrick, and he ends up being held hostage of sorts by this extremely well-endowed tree chick. She spends the whole scene motor-boating him while she tells him how she loves him.

So after I dropped the last time, I was convinced I could be like Schmendrick and that the tree off our front patio would motor-boat me. I ran outside and sort of hurled myself at the tree, but needless to say it neither caught me nor nuzzled me to its non-existent bosom, and I ended up at urgent care the next morning to get the splinters taken out of my face and chest. That shit left scars and everything.

And that was the morning Jasper Whitlock swore off Acid.

Emmett switches it up to Oakenfold now, and the Stripper Barbies are nervously looking around, clearly beginning to realize this is _not_ their scene. Trance has that effect on people if they're out of their element, which these girls definitely are.

"There's Bella, Jas," Edward yells in my ear. I follow his pointed finger to see the object of Edward's affections dancing her way toward us. "So _she_ must not be far off."

_She _is Bella's friend, Alice. Or as I call her in my head, Glowstick Girl. I haven't really _met _Alice, but believe me, I know who she is alright. But this is my last shot, so tonight, I'll finally really talk to her.

Lucky for me, being on E makes me feel braver than I ever would on my own.

Edward stalks toward Bella, but I only have eyes for Glowstick Girl. I stand in place, the drugs coursing through my system. I can feel the air circling my body, every little breath, every swirl from a spinning dancer. I smell cigarettes and stale smoke and menthol from the Vicks that someone near me has rubbed on an upper lip to feel the coolness and the tingle, to smell the mint.

Everything is amplified. It's all bigger and softer and prettier and louder. I want to hug everyone, to feel everything. But above all of those things, I want to find _her. _Where is she? I spin around, reveling in the twirl of the colors as my eyes sweep from group to group, from person to person.

Where is she?

I feel the rush of air through the hair on my arms as I turn. The beat from Emmett's latest spin pulses through my body. I don't pulse with the beat, it controls me. My body rocks and sways as the bass pumps through the floor into my shoes, my feet, my legs. I turn again.

Where is she?

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see the flash of green fluorescence whirring through my peripheral vision. In a flash, it sweeps by again, followed quickly by a similar flash of orange.

_Her._

I turn slowly on the ball of my foot and…fucking finally.

I exhale and feel a huge smile cross my face before I can even stop myself. She looks…_edible._ Shit, Jasper. Get a damn grip. You're high, you're not a cannibal.

Glowstick Girl is beautiful. She's petite, compact even, but strong. Gymnast strong, runner strong. This is a fit campus, most of the girls are in good shape. But Glowstick Girl could crush most of them.

Tonight, she's wearing a baseball cap pulled over her short dark hair. And remember when I said there were some girls that dressed in a way that made you want to check them out at these things? Glowstick Girl _owned_ that look. She has on a wife-beater with some kind of graphic on the front. I squint through the haze I can see swirling before my eyes; humidity and smoke and humanity. And I snort.

Her shirt says Gryffindor. It's a fucking _Harry Potter_ shirt. I feel my pants tighten as I take in the emblem. A tank from a kids' movie. Why is that hot?

I shake my head and pull my gaze away from her perky chest. C'mon Jasper. You don't even know her yet, quit staring at her rack.

Black skirt, complete with pleats. Short, but not slutty. But the socks. Holy Mary Mother of Fucking Hosiery those fucking SOCKS. Black and white stripes pulled over her knees, a snug black band holding each up just in that place where the defined muscle in her thigh dips to her knee. And there are holes cut into both socks, showing a little knee here, a little calf there, a little shin elsewhere. The few inches of skin between the tops of her socks and the bottom of her skirt is taut and ripples with muscle definition.

And to top it off, she's got on shit-kickers. These aren't just any boots, y'all. They're chunky and clunky, black patent leather with buckles and eyelets and laces for days. They climb up her calves, and I notice the tongues are crooked, showing a little bit of sock on her right shin.

She's so beautiful.

But she isn't just beautiful, she's brilliant. Edward knows her from class. She's in the Architecture program too, specializing in landscapes, Edward tells me. But he says she draws beautiful buildings too. Homes the likes of which you've never seen, he says.

Of course he knows her, the fucker. He shared four years with this wonderful girl that I've never had the guts to talk to, and I didn't tell him, so I never met her. When I saw him one day not long ago, across the quad with Bella, talking to her, my heart leapt in my throat. When he came back to our apartment later that evening, I assaulted him with questions. Who was she, how did he know her, what was she like, who was she with? He humored me, answered me, and now here I am, watching my Glowstick Girl dance atop a speaker (won't Emmett love that?), spinning glowsticks on strings, whirling and twirling the plastic tubes full of fluorescent liquid faster and faster, creating arcs of color like iridescent haloes around her beautiful head.

Today is the day I will finally talk to her.

I stop ogling her outfit once I realized I was doing it, but it turns out the E dulls the shame. I wasn't ogling _her_ at that very moment. And somehow I feel certain she knows that.

I raise my eyes to her face and am startled, if not more than a little bit pleased, that her eyes meet mine. She's flushed, just as I know I am, her big dark eyes wide, mouth curved up in a bright smile. Her teeth sparkle in the black light, and _oh my fuck! _Her teeth are sparkling extra when I realize the ball on the top of the bar I never realized was in her tongue was secured by a fluorescent ball that glowed from her mouth in the purplish gleam of the room.

Em shifts back into house music. His musical background makes him more likely to shift genres than most DJs. He hears depth in everything he spins, and even though his shit is all over the map, it always works somehow.

The change in beat pulsing through my body distracts me for a moment, but when I turn back to find Glowstick Girl up on that speaker, she's gone. My heart starts to sink momentarily, then I feel a warm, damp hand on my arm, pulling me down on one side. Hot breath hits the side of my face, smelling of cinnamon and sugar, and a voice like wind chimes funnels into my ear.

"So you must be Jasper." I look down at her. Truth be told, I don't have to look down too far, I'm not a tall man, but like I said, she's petite.

_How does she know my name?_

My mind races even as her voice threatens to push me over the edge, her hot breath ghosting in my ear making the hairs on my arms and back stand on end with arousal.

"Edward pointed you out to me across the quad the other day," she says. "You know he dates my roommate, Bella."

I nod. Roommates. Got it. I make a mental note to kick Edward's ass. I know he has class with her, but he failed to mention that Glowstick Girl also _lives _with his new girlfriend. Fucker.

Now that my muddied mind connects the "how the hell do we all know each other" dots, I look back to her beautiful face.

She slides her hand down my arm, the skin where her hand touches feels like fire, the skin that her hand leaves feels cold and empty in the air. She slides her hand into mine and looks up at me, beckoning me to follow with her eyes.

She pulls me through the crowd, weaving and bobbing through the bodies writhing on the dance floor. I feel their heat and sweat as I stumble behind her, but even as my senses are heightened, all I can feel is her palm, burning against mine. It's as though I can feel the blood pulsing through her veins as sure as I can feel my own. And my mind can't keep up with my body, it's stuck back on Glowstick Girl's hot breath in my ear, on my neck, blowing my hair across my scalp. My jeans feel tighter again as I feel arousal start to course through my body.

_Dammit Jasper, get a damn hold of yourself. You know better than that shit when you're high._

I remind myself of the rules as Glowstick Girl - _Alice, you ass, don't fucking call her Glowstick Girl to her face - _pulls me out the back door beyond the lit patio and onto the concrete courtyard.

No sex on E. No sex on E. and finally, no sex on E. Don't get me wrong. Fucking while you roll won't kill you. Quite the opposite in fact. Imagine the best sex you ever had, then imagine you can take the best moment from it and amplify it. Make it bigger and softer and harder and wetter and closer, and that's just scratching the surface.

When you roll, you just feel more. Your perception of your senses is heightened, especially your tactile sense. So you just _feel_ more and more. I've met people that have said that once they had sex on E, it ruined sex when they weren't rolling. And I _really _like sex, and would prefer not to develop a dislike for it just because I like screwing around a little at house parties.

So, like I said. No sex on E.

"You're rolling, right?" She looks back at me as we walk along. I nod. Apparently I can't speak. Fucking figures .

"You wanna feel something fucking amazing?" She grins at me like the Cheshire Cat, the residual glow from the ball on her tongue making her look like the sexiest fucking jack-o-lantern I've ever seen. I nod again, unsure just exactly what amazing might mean to her, but game for just about anything as long as she wanted to do it with me.

She stops in the middle of the courtyard in a pool of darkness and drops my hand. The night air is cool, but not cold. It was a warm day today, the first day that felt truly like summer was around the corner, and the chill of the night was exacerbated by the missing warmth we were treated to earlier. I can feel the air encircling me, like a cold embrace.

She drops to her knees on the concrete, pulling on my wrist. I slide to the ground at her side, eyebrows knitted up in confusion.

"Lay down," she orders as she settles herself to the ground on her stomach. I don't know what she's playing at, but shit, this is Glowstick Girl, I'll do whatever she says tonight. I flex my arms and lower my own body to the ground.

Alice's face is pressed into the concrete, her head turned to the side, watching me lower my torso to join her. I place my own cheek to the courtyard surface and look back at her.

"Can you feel that, Jasper?" She asks breathily. Her voice is hoarse and raspy, a result of trying to talk to anyone inside the party, I guess.

And just like that, I can, and I gasp.

It's as though the ground is alive under my body. I spread my fingers, palms flat against the ground. Invisible vapors rise up from the cement, swirling and whispering over the webs between my fingers. My eyes are wide as I look into hers, but I do not speak, and neither does she.

I don't know how long we lay there, silent, feeling the air coming up from the sidewalk circle around our bodies. We speak volumes without uttering a sound, drowning in each other's eyes. I can smell her lip gloss, delicious sweetness and vanilla. After what could be as little as five minutes or as much as five hours, she sighs and pushes herself up to a sitting position. I scramble to join her and finally find my voice.

"How did you know to do that, Alice?" I ask hoarsely. I'm amazed at how much I enjoyed just laying on the concrete with this girl, feeling the air and the hardness of the surface, not speaking.

She giggles. Maybe it's the E, maybe it's the girl. Maybe it's a mix of both. But that giggle might be the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. I can suddenly sympathize with Odysseus when he heard the Sirens. If their song was half as enticing as Glowstick Girl's laugh, they were doomed before they started.

"I don't even know, actually. I was at one of these things one night, dancing, you know, and I got hot. I think my shit was laced maybe, because I was dizzy, so I came outside to catch my breath." I watch her mouth as she talks, willing myself not to kiss her. "I sat down on the concrete patio at the house I was at, and suddenly I noticed the vapors, so I lay down." She giggles again. "Now I do it every time I roll. One night I spent almost the whole night lying on the sidewalk wrapped in a blanket. Everyone else thought I was fucking crazy. At least until I made them try it."

I laugh at the idea of a whole line of Alice disciples lying prostrate on a sidewalk outside a party as trance music wafts through the door.

She shivers now and draws her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them against the cool damp of the night air. I try not to stare as I realize I can see her underwear (also black, and there may be some sort of ruffles or lace around the seams) and I tear my eyes away and back to her face.

I look around, and spotting a brick half wall below a flower bed closer to the party, I rise and put out my hand to pull her up. She puts her hand back in mine and my eyes almost prick with tears at the spark I feel as our palms touch. I can't help but stroke her thumb with my own as I lead her toward the wall, but she doesn't pull away.

I sit, back against the wall, legs flat out in front of me and pat the ground between them. She barely hesitates before settling herself in front of me, wriggling back until her back is flush against my chest. She crosses her arms in front of herself, then reaches her hands a bit farther until her right finds my left and vice versa.

I let her guide my arms around her torso, wrapping her in warmth. I feel more than hear her sigh as she relaxes against me. It's like the purr of a cat vibrating up my body, and I sigh along with her.

From inside the party, I hear Em's music pulsing through the air. It must be late, he's slowed down the tempo. More Faithless, I think and…oh shit…

_I'm a sexual animal, eat you like a cannibal…_

Fucker really must be trying to get laid. Hell, maybe he's trying to get us all laid. _If Lovin' You Is Wrong_ is like pure sex pulsing through speakers.

"Is that better?" I whisper in her ear, and she nods, putting her head back on my shoulder and turning to look into my eyes.

_So come here and get nice while I lick your ear,  
Put your legs over there and kinda swing on the chair,  
I swear you look wicked with your panties in your hair,  
Eyes half closed,Cute little nose…_

She tips her head back, eyes hooded, licks her lips, and I'm undone. I lean down and brush her lips with mine, gently, softly, asking permission with my reticence. She presses her back into me and tilts her chin higher, straining to meet my ghosting kiss. I take that as acquiescence. I press my lips to hers this time, still gently, but I feel the desperation I've been feeling for her take root in my kiss.

She tastes like cinnamon and sugar and vanilla. Her lips are soft pressed against mine, and she deepens the kiss now, taking my bottom lip between hers. My eyes roll back in my head as she sucks on my lip.

She frees one hand and reaches up to put it on my cheek, stroking against the scruff of my unshaven jaw. Her fingers dig into my skin and pull against the grain of my stubble and I whimper, overtaken by the pleasure and the prickling.

Suddenly I feel her tongue slide along my lip and I open my mouth slightly, sliding my own tongue out to meet hers. Her mouth is so warm and sweet, her tongue soft and probing against mine. I feel the contrast of the hard ball at the top of the bar through her tongue, and the sensation of hard and soft is so overwhelming I moan into her mouth.

She hums her appreciation in response and slides her hand up to my hair, pulling me deeper into the kiss. The vibrations from our moans tickle the roof of my mouth and I feel my lips trying to curve up in an involuntary smile.

_And like a pound of self-raising I just rose and rose,  
Stepped out of my clothes started doing the right thing,  
I was pumping and she was biting,  
Yeah, lightning flashed and thunder roared,  
The girl had her finger on my keyboard,  
Oh lord, this is gonna last all night,  
If lovin' you is wrong I don't wanna be right._

She finally breaks the kiss, or maybe I do, and we stare at each other, panting.

"Well shit," she says.

"Fuck," I say at the same time.

We collapse into giggles then, gales of laughter breaking through the night even as Em's music pumps in the back ground.

"So I guess that's why they say no fucking on E, huh?" She says. "I need a fucking smoke just from that kiss, and maybe a change of panties."

My eyebrows fly up at her words, and I feel my dick twitch in my jeans –_down, boy – _but she's all smiles and laughter, and all I can focus on is her face.

She fumbles in the top of her sock band and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. American Spirits, but the box is yellow, I don't recognize it. She pulls one of the tan-colored cigarettes from the pack and holds it out to me.

"What are those?" I ask even as I take one from the pack.

"Cloves," she shrugs, the looks up at me coyly. "You liked the way I tasted, didn't you?"

I flush as I absorb her words, but I nod again.

"Cloves," she says again, decidedly. I pull a lighter from my jeans pocket, which allows me to brush her ass with my fingers as I fish for it, and she snickers at me, but she presses back against me at the same time, so I know she doesn't mind.

I light hers first, then my own, and my eyes pop with the first drag.

"Fucking Christ, Alice! This tastes like a bake sale!" I lick my lips and moan a little again. It's like smoking a coffee cake or something.

"See?" She mocks me, but she links the fingers of her free hand with mine.

We quiet for a moment, enjoying the smoke and the night air and the end of Em's song.

"Alice," I say quietly, my tone more serious now. I'm buoyed by the E again, and feeling brave enough to go down this path.

"I like you. I've liked you for a while, I just never had the courage to… Well. Never mind that. But it's almost graduation and I know you have that job and…"

She hushes me by turning her head back up and touching her lips to mine. She tastes divine.

"We found each other tonight, didn't we Jasper? After all this time?" She's staring at me like she can see into my soul, and my only thought is how much I wish that were the case. I nod at her uncertainly.

"Don't you think we'll find each other again?"

I look at her confusedly.

"C'mon Jasper, didn't you feel it in that kiss? That wasn't the drugs, baby, that was _us_. That was the spark of something bigger than graduation or jobs. We'll be together until we graduate. I don't think there's any way to keep us apart now." My heart soars at her words.

"Don't you know, baby?" She twists to brush her fingers down my face, my eyes close as she strokes my skin, feeling like a million tiny butterfly wings fluttering down my nose, my cheeks, my lips, my jaw.

She speaks again, and her words go straight to my heart and I know she's right somehow, that after this night is over, we will find each other and be together.

"Me and you? This? This is what we've both been looking for all along."

* * *

**A/N: **Just a few things. A huge thank you to averysubtlegift for her super speedy beta skills and putting up with my neuroses. She rocks my socks.

If you've never heard _If Lovin' You is Wrong,_ go find it on YouTube or blip or something. It really is sex in the speakers. And if you've never seen _The Last Unicorn_, you really ought to watch it. It's a little twisted and I'll be honest, it scared the shit out of me as a child, but it's worth a watch.

Next, and this is important, I am neither encouraging nor condoning recreational drug use. This idea has been dancing around in my head for a while, complete with glowsticks, and pieces of it are taken from things I know about, but I do not wish for anyone to think I'm glorifying drug use of any kind.

Finally, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed our little wannabe rave kids' last big night out!


	2. Salva Mea

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and all associated characters. This is her world, I'm just living in it. Title and song lyrics belong to Faithless. I'm not even cool enough to live in their world. No copyright infringement intended.**

Thanks to **InstantKarmaGirl **for reading this before it was even readable and cleaning up some serious chaos, and to **siouxchef** for her beta magic, without which this would be a hot mess. I couldn't have posted this without you both.

This is for **Kassiah**, who gave me the idea and who has been among the best sources of encouragement I've had since I started all this writing nonsense. I hope you like it, sweets.

Go find Faithless's _**Salva Mea **_on blip or YouTube while you read. It may well enhance your reading experience.

* * *

_**Salva Mea**_

"You know I love you like the sister I never wanted, Bella..." Alice glares at me as she shouts over the music. I can't help but smile, even as I wrench my fists away from the hem of my skirt. "But if you do not stop yanking on that fucking skirt, so help me I will bitch slap you!"

She holds a pointed stare for about three seconds before we both collapse into giggles. And somehow since this night, our last party before graduation and real life take hold, started out like so many others had over the last four years, I knew it would be a good one.

"But Alice, it's so damn soft! Feel it!" Even as the words come out of my mouth I want to roll my eyes, but I can't. I sound like a little kid, but that's how I feel when I roll. Every fucking thing feels new. This must be what it's like to be a newborn animal exposed to a hundred different things all at once.

Alice rolls her eyes and gestures vaguely into the dance floor, telling me she's going to go find a place to land for the night. I nod. She won't be hard to find once she starts spinning, so I don't worry. Hell, as good as I feel, I'm not going to worry about much.

The lights swirl and pulse in time with the beat of the bass, and I swear my heart pounds to the same rhythm I mentally try to pull it together, a challenge for me at the best of times when thoughts of my new boyfriend Edward worm their way into my head. Thinking of him now though, in this state? I have to force my breath to slow to normal rate and concentrate on the beat of the music to distract myself from the mental pictures I'm painting.

The thing is, as bright as the lights are, as deep as the bass is, when I roll I crave _touch. _ I want to touch everything. I want to feel the wind and the sun and the darkness. I want to roll around in the grass and then go roll around in satin sheets.

Satin sheets.

With Edward.

His lips, his hands, our skin sliding together…I shake my head in a vain effort to clear my thoughts and then turn around to find something to climb onto to give me a better vantage point.

From my perch on top of what I can only assume is the dining room table, I scan the crowd as I move almost absent-mindedly to the beat. Dancing on furniture at house parties is a habit I picked up after one too many nights of wearing some fucker's beer or jungle juice after a dance floor spill. When you're shorter than most of the people at a party, and when most of those people feel some fucked up need to dance with their drinks above their heads, the Rockies only have to get tapped over your head a couple of times before you figure out you need a Plan B.

Tables are preferable, but chairs work. Hell, any raised surface works, just as long as I'm above cup level. Plus, I get a clear view of the place, which is a pleasant change for one of the vertically challenged. _God is a DJ_ blares from the huge speakers spread throughout the main floor of the house. Alice stands on top of one of the speakers across the room, glowsticks tied to lines of kite string dangling from her fists and spinning around her face and body. Trails of orange and green fluorescence hang in the air behind the plastic canisters as she spins them intricately, creating patterns of color and light. She has an audience already; she always does.

Alice can spin those fucking glowsticks like nothing I've ever seen. It's like art or something, and not just because I'm high.

I watch her as I move to the music, grateful for the distraction. I'm mesmerized by the arcs of color, only pulled from my reverie for a moment to remember the miniature glowstick I have in the pocket of my skirt. I smile as I take it from its tiny plastic package and crack it in my fingers, then slip it in my mouth. I smile wider down at a couple of dudes I know from class, and they both point and laugh, shooting me thumbs-up at my jack-o-lantern grin. One reaches up to put a hand on my calf appreciatively and I have to stop my knees from buckling at the sensation of the warmth of his palm through my socks. This might normally weird me out, but like I said, I want to touch _everyone_ when I'm high.

I go back to watching Alice, losing myself again in the blurs of orange and green spinning around her face. She looks almost angelic, if angels wore halos in colors straight out of the 80s and t-shirts proclaiming their allegiance to House Gryffindor. Faithless winds down and something more trance-like pulses through the speakers. I sway and move with the thumping rhythm. After a bit longer, I distractedly notice the lights from Alice's direction have stopped, and I squint to see my friend no longer holds her post atop the big speaker. I glance downward at the floor and catch a glimpse of her baseball cap bobbing through the crowd followed by a blond guy I know at a glance to be Edward's roommate Jasper.

I grin, first because this means Alice has finally decided to talk to Jasper, or vice versa, after months and months of each mooning over the other from afar while Edward had his head up his ass and didn't notice.

But mostly I grin because where Jasper goes, Edward can't be too far behind, and I dismiss Alice from my thoughts and look back through the crowd until I find that face. That beautiful, perfect fucking face, which is all the more perfect tonight because tonight I love everyone, so of course the face I love the rest of the time must be even better than usual. I slide easily down from the table, not caring that I just gave most of the party a peep show because who the hell was looking anyway, and begin pushing through the throngs of dancers toward Edward.

He strides across the floor of the party toward me. Suddenly, I know what it's like to be some wild animal's next meal. Edward's eyes, which on any other day would be called piercing, nearly glow as he moves through the crowd.

He's beautiful every day, but tonight he's captivating. My breath catches in my throat and I can almost feel my eyes dilate with desire as he approaches. I can definitely feel my cheeks flush, but I can chalk that one up to the heat from the partygoers around us.

"Hi baby," his breath is hot in my ear, and I feel the vibrations of his voice waving lazily down the skin on my neck to my shoulder. The tickle they leave behind causes the hair on my arms to prickle like I'm standing next to one of those static machines.

I'm sensitive to touch on a normal basis. Throw in an Ecstasy buzz, and I'm on non-stop sensory overload. It's what I like about rolling; I like feeling everything at once and trying to pull apart what causes each sensation.

But rolling when Edward's around is a different animal altogether, I can tell already. When we met, our connection had been instant and intense. Every kiss, every touch, every shared intimacy since then has been fueled by what our friends call the "honeymoon period", but I think is something more than that. I've been with other boys, had that puppy-love phase where we hold hands all the time and sneak into corners to kiss and giggle, but there's more with Edward. The air is richer when he's around, and I want to breathe in every inch of it whenever I can.

He appraises my outfit with what I could only describe as appreciation mixed with raw lust painted across his features. I chose carefully when I dressed before the party, knowing that every piece of clothing was part of the experience, that every fabric presented infinite possibility with heightened tactile awareness.

After changing no fewer than a dozen times, I settled on a t-shirt with one of those felt screen prints of Rainbow Brite on it and a black pleated skirt, which, as Alice and I had already discovered, was surprisingly soft to the touch.

We ruled out tights when I blushingly admitted to Alice that I didn't want to be that…restricted. Alice seemed to take all that in stride, and she emptied my underwear drawer out on the floor, sifting through cotton and lace until she grinned triumphantly and flourished a fistful of straps and sheer that turned out to be a garter belt and thigh high striped stockings. I tried (not very hard, I'll admit) to argue, but she wasn't to be swayed, and after she appraised the overall look and deemed me fit for human consumption (her exact words, and she didn't even bother to stifle the laugh that came with them), we'd left, popping E on the way to minimize the wait before it kicked in at the party.

"You wanna dance?" Edward's voice is a raspy growl in my ear, and the hair on the back of my neck rises as I melt into his open arms. We don't speak, we just move together in time to the music, which switches back and forth from trance to house. We move and writhe and grind and sway, touching and breathing and staring into one another's eyes. Heat radiates from our bodies and I feel sure we could combust right here on the spot. His hands roam over my arms and settle on my lower back, one gripping the hem of my t-shirt in a fist, the other brushing the bare skin under it. My own hands, pressed against his chest, are rigid with want for skin-to-skin contact, and I can't stop my fingers from curling so my nails dig in through his shirt.

The strains of another Faithless song begin to seep through the speakers, violin haunting the room and the energy in the room shifts.

_How can I change_

_The way_

_I am?_

_I don't know_

_I don't know_

The spell in the music makes us stop our movement and we stand there, limbs wound together, breathing hard and staring. Neither of us blinks, we just stand there and pant.

When the beat begins its frenzied crescendo Edward seems to snap, and before I know it he's sweeping me up off the floor, my legs wrapping around his waist as he moves across the floor once more.

The song shifts again, and a heavy beat takes over as a raspy male voice flows through the air.

_Slide..._

_Just below my skin…I'm screamin'_

He sits me on top of one of the speakers in a dark corner of the room and places a hand on each knee, pulling my legs apart so he can place himself between them. I'm aware of the vibrations of the speaker pulsing up from under me and I squirm slightly, unashamedly seeking a spot simultaneously closer to Edward's body and the source of the sound waves.

After what seems an eternity, Edward breaks our locked gaze and leans toward me, eyes on my parted lips. My breath quickens instantaneously.

_What the fuck, Bella, you act like you've never kissed the guy before!_ My thoughts are whirling and swirling and I can't get hold of a single one except the loudest in my head: _More. I want more._

My chest heaves in anticipation, but he stops, hovering above my lips. I realize suddenly that the glowstick is still in my mouth and I smile at him, seeing the glow reflect back in his face. He reaches up and pulls it gently from between my teeth, never moving his face more than an inch from mine.

I flick out my tongue, and he's so close that I brush his lips with it as I lick my own. He tastes like Christmas; all peppermint and menthol and heat from the cigarette.

I moan without realizing it at the very same instant Edward closes the distance between our lips. The vibrations from my moan reverberate in our mouths. He pushes his tongue between my parted lips, flicking it over my teeth, tickling the roof of my mouth, massaging my own tongue with it.

_Help me_

_Help me_

_Help me_

The voice repeats the chorus over and over, and it spurs me on. I move my hands off the speaker where they've been braced and slide them under his shirt and into the waist of his jeans. I hook my fingers there and pull, begging him silently to close the distance between us. I can feel the heat emanating from his body in waves, and smell his scent mingled with cigarette smoke and hints of orange from my lip-gloss.

Our kisses continue, growing harder and sloppier, more desperate. I pull him closer, his body is flush against mine and I can feel his arousal pressed between my legs. When he comes in contact with the pulsing bass emanating from the speaker, his eyes fly open and he pulls away from my mouth for a moment. His eyes roll back in his head a little and his lips form a word he doesn't actually speak aloud.

"Fuuuuuuuck."

Achingly slow, he slides his hands up from where they've been resting on my knees to my thighs, fingers applying waves of pressure as they move up my stockings. Trails of fire follow in their wake and my skin tingles and burns with his touch.

Edward's eyes bore into mine. His fingers continue their slow, torturous path up my legs to the tops of my stockings under my skirt. His breath hitches when he feels the clasps of the garter belt. I smirk, momentarily proud of myself for stunning him, but the feeling of the pads of his fingers sliding in a line under the straps up toward my waist wipes the smirk off my face and I whimper softly.

His hands find my hips under my skirt, and for a moment I realize how exposed I must be

before all thought is driven from my head when I feel his thumbs slide under the straps on my stockings and circle slowly on my skin, brushing under the seams of my underwear. My breath catches again. Here? Are we really doing this here? Do I really want to do this here?

He crashes his lips back to mine at the same time one thought slams through my head. Fuck. Yes. I want to do this here. Right fucking here, right fucking now.

I reach my hands up and wind my fingers into his hair as we writhe together, almost grinding our hips to the beat of the music. His eyes roll back in his head again, and he lets out a low, guttural moan that shoots straight between my legs, leaving sparks and heat in its wake. His hair is silk in my fingers, and I twist and stroke and pull, marveling at its softness, at the texture of each strand.

Then it's my turn to moan as his lips begin tracing a trail across my jaw and up behind my ear. I gasp and wriggle in anticipation, then yelp with pleasure as he takes my earlobe between his teeth and bites, not so gently, rolling the thickly gauged hoop in my ear around with his tongue. I close my fists around his hair and pull a little harder at this, which only seems to spur him on. I can feel his hardness through his jeans and I rock toward him. My motions don't go unnoticed; as I push toward him his circling thumbs cease their movements for a fraction of a second before they slide closer to the apex between my thighs.

_Are we really doing this here?_

I feel as much as hear the beat change yet again as it pounds through the speaker.

_Help me_

_Help me_

_Help me_

Help me indeed. My body screams for satisfaction, for more, for harder, for hotter, for faster_._

"Oh really, Bella?" Edward's voice, still a little raspy from the cigarette and from shouting to be heard over the music, startles me for the briefest moment. "Harder baby? That's what you want? You want _more?_"

He gently pushes my panties aside, and the sensation of his fingers against the wetness beneath makes me shudder, but only for a second before he pushes one inside, pressing against my clit with his thumb as he moves against my writhing hips.

My eyes widen before they roll back again and we are all lips and hands and fingers grasping and groping, tugging and pulling and pushing. His pants come undone between my shaky fingers as I try to focus on anything but the overwhelming heat of his fingers inside me and against me. I feel sure I will scream as he speeds up with the beat as it changes yet again.

_Salva Mea_ indeed. I find myself mouthing the words to the song as I rock on Edward's fingers.

_Help me_

_Help me_

_Help me_

Edward pulls his hand away and I am overcome by the loss, but he presses his lips to mine so greedily that I'm caught up in the taste of his kiss, the feel of his tongue, the scent of _him._

"Do you want to do this?" He pulls his head to the side, breath hot and humming in my ear, and I nod without pause. Christ yes, I want to do this. I want to do this right now, right here, forever. Fuck that stupid rule; no fucking on E is for people whose sex lives teeter on the edge of boring and who can only get it right when they're rolling. Edward and I have already gotten it right more times that I can remember.

He somehow manages to fish a condom from his pocket and put it on without breaking our kiss, and when he enters me, our moans border on screams. The music is so loud it masks any sounds we make, but I feel sure we'll be heard before the song is finished. He pushes into me, his hands pushing my knees apart even farther. I grip the waist of his jeans, which are still pulled up, trying to pull him into me harder and faster.

The music has reached a frenzy again, and the pressure and vibration coming up through the speaker beneath us spurs us on even more. I rock against the beat, against Edward's thrusts and I feel tension building in my abdomen. I grind against Edward and he grunts, and before long we're both writhing and grasping and groping again, fingers slipping against sweaty skin, heads alternately thrown back as the pleasure courses through us in waves with the bass and pressed together for needy, hungry kisses. My orgasm hits me with such force I think I will black out. Surge after surge of toe-curling, scream-inducing current courses through me, and I know Edward is coming too as my eyes lock on his. His lips form words I cannot hear but think must mimic my own silent prayers of thanks.

The beat and volume winds down as we do, and the violin oozes back through the speakers again. Edward presses his forehead to mine, panting. He deftly removes the condom and tosses it into a bin I hadn't noticed before near the speaker. He buttons his pants back up and smoothes my skirt, still pressed against me.

We still don't speak, because although the climax is wearing down, the high will last for hours yet. I don't know the words to tell him about all the things I just felt, both emotionally and physically, and from the look in his eyes, he's in no better condition to speak.

Tomorrow we'll speak, when we've woken up from a long, deep slumber; the kind that always comes after a night on E, the kind that is only made better by riding out the last waves of the high wrapped in someone else's warm, strong arms, skin pressed against skin.

Tomorrow, when Edward's hair is wild and his eyes are tired behind those smart, sexy glasses and my hair is in a knot on top of my head and I'm wearing his clothes because we sleep at his place so Alice can take Jasper to ours. Then we will talk. We'll talk about this night, and how it was our last night in this place, in this pretend world where consequences don't really exist and fun is paramount.

We'll talk about how to juggle our respective job offers, how we'll manage visiting each other in different cities, who will buy plane tickets, who will have roommates that will have to be broken into the idea of a frequent visitor.

Tomorrow.

But tonight, this night, this is our night to just be Edward and Bella. Together.

So I clutch at the skin under his shirt and pull his lips to mine. Our kiss is slower, gentler, but no less wanting, and I feel the inevitable desire mount again, more sweetly this time. And I smile, thinking of the words to the song that just accompanied our little tryst, and how they fit my feelings for this boy so perfectly.

_Just below my skin…I'm screamin'_


End file.
